The developer building Heritage Park at the former UConn campus in West Hartford is proposing a project in another town.
It’s 266 apartments just off Glastonbury’s Main Street, with nearly a third of them to be priced at state-designated “affordable” rents.
Domenic Carpionato of Rhode Island wants to put up a series of three- to four-story buildings near Main Street at Griswold Street in what would become one of the largest residential complexes in town.
It’s one of two major developments envisioned for Glastonbury’s Main Street: The Greenwich-based HB Nitkin Group is proposing about 170 apartments in a mixed-use project that would entail demolishing a pair of existing commercial buildings.
The projects aren’t linked, but if both are built, they’d significantly change the appearance of the town center. Both developers are going before town environmental boards on Thursday to discuss their plans.
The proposal from HB Nitkin involves a significant amount of first-floor retail along with market-rate apartments, and is subject to standard zoning review. But Carpionato’s proposal was filed under Connecticut’s 8-30g law, which gives affordable housing developers a powerful advantage by making many zoning standards irrelevant to their applications.
The 8-30g law applies to towns with less than 10% of its housing designated as affordable by state measurements. Glastonbury stood at just 5.23% in 2023.
Glastonbury has acknowledged it needs more rental housing, The town had just under 14,500 housing units in 2023, with the vast majority of them single-family homes.
Glastonbury’s housing authority keeps a list of more than 1,100 applicants for its inventory of fewer than 470 homes, and most town residents report they personally know people who could use moderate-priced local housing, a local affordable housing committee concluded.
“Almost 60% of community survey respondents indicated they knew someone who could benefit from affordable housing. The wait list and community awareness of need demonstrate that Glastonbury needs additional affordable housing units,” according to Glastonbury’s 2022 affordability plan.
Carpionato, executive vice president of the Carpionato Group that built Avon Village Center, is the chief developer of Heritage Park, the sprawling residential and commercial complex planned at the former UConn campus in West Hartford.
The 266-apartment proposal will go to a Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on Jan. 20, and Carpionato is asking the Conservation Commission on Thursday to give it a positive endorsement.
Plans show a four-story building with 71 apartments, four three- to four-story buildings with between 40 and 62 units each, and a clubhouse. The 8-30g application requires the developer to set aside 30 percent of the apartments at state-approved affordable lease rates for 40 years, but the other 70 percent can be rented at market rates.
A few blocks to the south, the HB Nitkin Group wants to put in a mix of ground-floor retail and upper floor apartments on the west side of Main Street between Hebron Avenue and Rankin Road. The company on Thursday night will be asking the inland wetlands board for a permit to redevelop that half-block of Main Street.